


Deleted Scenes

by solomonara



Series: How to Date a Superhero [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alfred Pennyworth is a Butler, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Gen, Humor, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Mean Girls, Sibling Bonding, Stephanie Brown is Spoiler, Tim Drake is Red Robin, daring rescues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 22:59:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara
Summary: Deleted scenes from the How to Date a Superhero series, ruthlessly cut in most cases to prevent the Robins from taking over.





	1. Whatever Happened to Jenny Greene

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, deleted scenes! I did ask [DragonSorceress22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsorceress22) to run through these for grammar as usual, but you might find them otherwise less polished than other stuff I've written since once I decided to cut them, I stopped working on them. So, they may end abruptly, or not fit quite right, etc. But I still like them :)
> 
> This first scene was cut from How to Date the Batman. Enjoy.

Spoiler was a little bored. No one was on the coms tonight, which either meant they were having super serious fights without her, or else crime was as slow everywhere as it was in this part of the city. Even Red Robin didn't seem to be active tonight, and that was saying something. He worked way too hard.

She was balance-beaming her way down a roof ledge, contemplating going to find Tim and bribing him with Starbucks to forget about whatever he was doing, when she rounded the corner and finally hit paydirt. Someone was slipping into the fifth-storey window of a building across the street.

Okay, it was _potentially_ the apartment's owner. She knew a lot of people who regularly saw the need to enter and exit via windows. But when the light didn't turn on in the apartment after a moment she listened to her hero-instincts and swung into action.

Literally. Right through the still-open window, feet-first. She connected solidly with the intruder and sent him sprawling. "Ha! Spoiled!" she said triumphantly.

"Ow, what the hell, Spoiler?" the burglar hissed. In Red Robin's voice. "It's me!"

"Oh _waffles_ ," Spoiler swore. She stuck out a hand and hauled Red Robin to his feet. "I thought you were a burglar! What are you doing? Whose apartment is this?"

"One: investigating, and two: Jenny Greene," Red Robin said, a little irritably in Spoiler's opinion. Spoiler watched him set right anything that had been moved so much as a centimeter when Spoiler had crashed into him. It wasn't much. The apartment was tiny. She was lucky she hadn't kicked him into a wall and dented it. Red Robin opened Jenny Greene's computer and inserted a thumb drive.

"Okay, I'll bite," Spoiler said, leaning over his shoulder to see what he was doing. "Who's Jenny Greene and why are we bugging her computer? Super spy? Terrorist? …uh, Nightwing fangirl?" Spoiler's eyebrows went up as she saw the extensive collection of photos Red Robin was scrolling through now.

"Photographer," Red Robin said. "They call themselves batwatchers and seriously _how_ are there this many photos of him?" Then, grudgingly, "…some of these are pretty good, actually."

"Oh, I get it," Spoiler said. "She's the one who took that picture that's trending on… everything."

"Right. The _Gazette_ kept their source anonymous but based on the location, the angle of the shot, and the quality, I figured it had to come from one of these apartments. And when I saw that—" He nodded at the telescope still pointed out the window. "I knew who our artist was. Apartment's leased to Jenny Greene, Holiday Inn concierge, who will be home in about half an hour, so…"

"So you need to finish hijacking her computer. Hang on, this is… taking a photo and selling it isn't illegal, Red Robin. What you're doing definitely is, though."

Red Robin straightened and fixed Spoiler with a skeptical look. "The legality of selling that photo is a gray area. And it's not as though I'm stealing her identity." He turned back to the keyboard, unperturbed. "I just need to keep an eye on things like this. I know how easy it is for someone who's paying attention to figure certain things out."

"Sure," Spoiler said, crossing her arms.

"Done," Red Robin said, shutting the computer back down and heading back out the window. "You coming or are you going to stick around until she gets back?"

"Right behind you, Red."

Moments later they were back on the rooftops, gliding along in silence, until Red Robin laughed, apparently at nothing.

"What?" Spoiler demanded.

"' _Spoiled'_? Really?" he snarked.

"Oh, excuse me, mister named-yourself-after-a-restaurant-chain," she shot back. "You do not get to mock my catch-phrases, Applebee's."

"What? That's— I didn't— I had the name first!"

"You did not. Red Robin was founded in the forties."

"Why do you know so much about this restaurant?"

"And why do you both have your coms on for this _fascinating_ discussion?" snapped Oracle in both their earpieces. Red Robin and Spoiler flinched, then exchanged sheepish looks. It was probably time to call it a night.

 

One week later, Jenny Greene received an odd piece of mail. She had been offered a scholarship to study photography at Columbia. She didn't think that was how scholarships normally worked, but it seemed legitimate. The Wayne Foundation was as above-board as it got, and they confirmed the offer when she called their 800 number. Maybe one of their board members was secretly on the batwatcher forums or something.

At any rate, in a few months she was moving to Chicago, taking her equipment – bugged and otherwise – with her. If Tim was annoyed at the loss of data, he didn't say anything. He also didn't notice Barbara and Steph casually high-fiving behind his back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one, I cut for several reasons:
> 
> 1: I didn't actually end up caring what happened to Jenny Greene all that much, and figured you wouldn't either.  
> 2: I wasn't feeling real confident about Tim and Steph's characterizations here.  
> 3: The scene just wasn't landing right for me and I had no idea where to fit it in so... slice and dice.
> 
> This was an easy call. The next two were harder :P


	2. Mean Robins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was cut from Turnabout is Fair Play

"I'm just saying," Nightwing said, landing solidly on the shoulders of some poor, sex-pollen-ed thug with a flamethrower. "I can't believe you've never seen it. That's like, a major gap in your pop-culture knowledge." He sprang backward off of the guy, driving him to the ground, and kicking another of Ivy's minions in the head on the way down. "What if it's a clue to a murder at some point?"

"Nightwing!" Batman called out in warning. Nightwing ducked just as flames shot over his head. Batman knocked the flamethrower out of the thug's hands with a well-placed batarang, then made sure he stayed down.

"You know, I get the feeling Ivy doesn't want to talk to us," Nightwing said. Batman didn't respond, just went about administering the antidote to the last of the knocked-out minions. Poison Ivy was long gone, but he knew he'd catch up with her again. Just maybe not tonight. He'd had Robin with him and it had been a major contest of wills to get him to hang back. He didn't want to try that twice in one night, and he _definitely_ didn't want Robin coming into contact with any of Ivy's more exotic organic specimens.

"I think we're done for the night," Batman said. They left the botanical gardens in silence but before Nightwing could take off on his bike, Batman said, "Is it _likely_ that a clue to a case would hinge on having knowledge of _Mean Girls_?"

"Wow did I ever pop onto this channel at the right time," came Red Hood's voice over the coms.

"Jay!" Nightwing exclaimed, delighted. Batman didn't even bother telling him off about code names while on duty. "Tell Batman it's a crime he's never seen _Mean Girls_."

"What?" Red Hood asked.

"See?" Batman said. "Not everyone has—"

"You've never seen _Mean Girls_? How is that possible? I was dead and I've still managed to see it!" Red Hood exclaimed. Batman sighed. "Hey Nightwing, what do you think the limit of Batman's pop culture illiteracy is?"

"Hm, I dunno Hood, I'd have to say… the limit does not exist!"

They devolved into laughter. Batman ignored them and got into the Batmobile, only to be greeted by icy silence from Robin in the passenger seat. Nightwing and Red Hood were still being incomprehensible (something about his cape being full of secrets) so Batman cut the coms. At least they were agreeing about something.

 

A few days later, Tim found Bruce sitting in front of his computer in the Batcave, idly twirling a DVD box in his hands and looking at it skeptically. Damian was bonding with his sword over on the practice mats.

"Hey," Tim said. "Dick says you're still working an angle on the tragacanth case. I thought that was wrapped up?"

"Hm. No. There have been… complications."

"Need anything hacked?"

"Not yet. But possibly soon."

"All right, well, I'm headed up to say hi to Alfred. Let me know if you need anything," Tim said.

"Tim," Bruce said, spinning in his chair abruptly. "Have you ever seen this movie?" He held up the DVD.

" _Mean Girls_? Ha, yes, I watched it with Steph and Barbara ages ago. It's pretty good."

"You too, huh?" Bruce thought for a moment. "Damian, what about you?"

"Of course," Damian called, maintaining his concentration as he worked his way through a form. "My training was thorough."

Bruce _harrumphed_ and turned back to the computer.

 

Tim ended up staying longer than he'd intended. It had been a while since he and Alfred had caught up, and then Dick had turned up, and the next thing he knew Alfred was insisting they both spend the night. Tim was padding down the hallway in what Alfred had started referring to as "the Robin wing." He maintained rooms for all of Bruce's wayward children since they had a tendency to wash up at the manor's doors on a semi-regular basis.

It was nearly two in the morning, so when Tim heard voices coming from Damian's room he paused and listened. Closer to the door, he could make out the slightly muted sounds of a girl enthusiastically spelling _xylocarp_. He thrust the door open.

"I knew it!" he exclaimed. Damian fumbled the television remote and, when he couldn't turn off the movie quickly enough, settled for throwing the remote at Tim's head. Tim caught it. "I knew you hadn't seen it. I can't believe you lied about something so stupid."

"Silence, Drake. I was merely… refreshing my memory."

"Like hell. What is _wrong_ with you."

Damian's fingers twitched toward his sword and things might have gone badly at that point if a sleep-mussed Dick had not wandered up the hall wearing nothing but a pair of Superman-patterned pajama pants. "What's all the commotion, guys?" He took in the scene and Tim and Damian both braced themselves for a lecture. But instead, Dick grinned. "Ooh, are we watching _Mean Girls_? I'll call Jay!"

The next thing Damian knew, three of his predecessors were squished onto his bed, getting popcorn everywhere, and having to explain some finer points of high-school culture to Damian, whom they had pulled down into their midst despite his protests. Well, if he wanted to extricate himself, he knew he could stab a few non-vital points and be gone but… it wasn't worth the scolding about blood stains from Alfred.

By the time Bruce checked in on Damian after returning from patrol, the kid was sound asleep against Dick's side and the movie menu was playing on a loop. Jason had heard Bruce coming and skedaddled just a few minutes before, and Tim had gone back to his own room after falling asleep during the prom scene, but Dick was held in place by the sacred obligation of all humans who have found themselves beneath a tiny sleeping creature. He raised a finger to his lips when Bruce looked in and Bruce just shook his head with a small smile and ducked back out.

Two seconds later he ducked back in and took a picture before either of his sons could move, because there are some occasions when even Batman can't resist being a dad.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene is leftover from when I was still planning on having Poison Ivy play a bigger role in the main plot. Since I ended up deciding that would just over-complicate things, I didn't need the beginning part anymore and the rest didn't further the plot or deal directly with Clark and Bruce. And so it was heartlessly abandoned.


	3. Kidnapping Alfred is NOT Fair Play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was cut from Turnabout is Fair Play.

Finding Alfred was not difficult; Bruce was at a party in the middle of nowhere, and there were only so many directions to go with a kidnapped butler. Nightwing had raced for the Batcave and had the Batplane off the ground within minutes of Bruce's phone call. Now he was crouched near the cloaked plane on a forested bluff, using binoculars to monitor the car carrying an unconscious butler in its trunk as it snaked down the road toward him. It was still a ways off. The difficult part, he mused, would be rescuing Alfred without his kidnappers wondering why Nightwing would come so far from Gotham for a billionaire's chauffeur.

That part was, in fact, about to get precisely four times _more_ difficult.

"What are you waiting for?" demanded Robin and Nightwing almost fell off the bluff.

"Robin, what are you— did you stow away?"

"No. I accompanied you on the mission. It is not my fault you didn't notice."

"Fine, just stay out of sight. We can't let—"

"What did we miss?" Red Robin and Spoiler came running up the bluff behind them and dropped to their stomachs to peer over the ledge with Damian.

"How did you guys get here?" Nightwing asked, bewildered.

"Batwoman loaned us her plane," Spoiler said. "Well… I mean, I'm sure she would have if we'd had time to ask. Red Robin overheard your call."

"Look, this is not—"

"Are we supposed to be stopping that car?" Red Hood asked from right beside Nightwing, where he definitely hadn't been a moment before.

Red Robin craned around to look at him and scowled. "Did you stow away?"

"Yep. Come on, kid, you're not the only one who monitors the batchannels. Seriously, though, he's getting close. You want me to get the rocket launcher?"

"You stowed away with a rocket launcher?" Spoiler asked, sounding far too admiring for Nightwing's taste.

"Guys, no, we can't— what will the bad guys think if we _all_ show up to rescue him?" Nightwing asked, a little desperately.

"Oh wow, he stowed away with a rocket launcher _and_ a motorcycle," Spoiler said, looking down at the road again.

" _What_?"

Sure enough, Red Hood was zipping off down the road, well ahead and out of sight of the kidnappers' car. Nightwing adjusted his binoculars and sighed.

"He didn't stow away with a motorcycle, he stole mine from the Batplane," he said, resigned. "And he stole Robin along with it." The kid was riding pillion, clinging to Red Hood's jacket. Nightwing saw him lean forward to shout something at him. Red Hood tossed his head back in what Nightwing recognized as Jason laughing even with the helmet. He skidded the motorcycle to a stop at the side of the road, just before the road became a bridge high above a wide river. There was no way _that_ was going to end well.

"Are those… explosives?" Spoiler wondered, peering through her own binoculars.

"Probably," Nightwing muttered, not bothering to look. He could still salvage this if he cut the car off before it ran into his explosion-happy successors. The road twisted and curved along a path carved between two high banks covered in dense foliage and trees. He had been _planning_ on puncturing the gas tank, waiting for the car to die, and then whisking Alfred away under cover of trees and darkness, but he'd have to come up with something a little quicker now.

"Spoiler, will you go over there and make sure they don't set anything on fire? There's way too much undergrowth to risk it."

"How come I get stuck with babysitting duty when Red Robin gets to go after the kidnappers?" Spoiler griped.

"Red Robin doesn't get to— oh for fuck's sake."

Red Robin went sprinting toward the edge of the bluff and leapt off, a batglider unfurling in the air and carrying him off toward the car.

"This would never happen with the Titans," Nightwing muttered.

"Oh look, Alfred's escaping!" Spoiler said.

The car was finally within batarang distance of the bluff and the trunk had just popped open, Alfred's head poking out cautiously. Red Robin was still trailing the car, high enough that it was unlikely the drivers would notice him. If he could get close enough to grab Alfred, this all might actually work out, but there was no way the kidnappers weren't going to notice a popped trunk.

"We need to distract them. Maybe—"

"I've got just the thing. Babs and I have been working on these," Spoiler said, pulling out a batarang of unfamiliar design. From a glance, Nightwing could tell that it was the kind that would detonate on impact, but whether that would be with an EMP, a taser, glue, or some other surprise, he couldn't tell.

"Is it going to set anything on fire?"

"Absolutely not."

Nightwing gave a cautious go-ahead, thrilled at the novelty of actually having a say in something on this mission, and Spoiler winged the batarang with unerring accuracy at the car's windshield.

It erupted into glitter. An iridescent, shimmering explosion of rainbow particles engulfed the car briefly until it burst through, trailing streams of glitter in its wake. It clung to the sides of the car in streaks and settled on the road, but was thickest on the windshield where the batarang had impacted. In fact, the windshield was now a solid window of glitter. There was no way anyone could see through that. The driver turned on the windshield wipers and washer fluid but it had zero impact.

"Huh. That got a lot more spread than anticipated," Spoiler commented.

"They're not slowing down," Nightwing said, getting to his feet. "Damn. Red Robin isn't close enough. That curve—"

The kidnappers had rolled down the side windows and were careening around the last curve between them and whatever Robin and Red Hood had set up. Now Nightwing could see that Alfred's hands and feet were tied; leaping from the car like that would be dangerous, even if the car hadn't been going as fast as it was. Nightwing began sprinting along the top of the bluff, then fired a line up into the trees to propel himself along through the air as though he was home among the skyscrapers of Gotham. He drew close to the bridge just as the car did and fired a grappling line across the road and into the trees at the top of the opposite embankment, hoping he'd judged the length and tension correctly and wasn't about to smack face-first into a wall of dirt. He swung across, the low point of his arc taking him well within arm's-reach of Alfred, who reached up his bound hands and caught Nightwing's extended wrist – just as everything exploded.

The incendiary in the road had detonated just before the front of the car reached it. It was actually a relatively small explosion, given the people who had set it up, but it was loud and bright and the car swerved, burying its nose in the embankment just underneath Nightwing. And erupting into flame.

Nightwing would later maintain that he _had_ calculated his trajectory accurately, but that the sudden exploding car and fire underneath him threw him off. Regardless, he managed to swing into the embankment with his feet braced against it, Alfred dangling from one hand far too close to the fire for anyone's liking. Nightwing tightened his grip. They were also way too close to the edge of the road, less than a foot from the long drop down to the river.

Below them, the fire reached up, kissing the soles of Alfred's shoes and he curled his legs up. "In your own time, Master Nightwing," he suggested lightly.

Nightwing huffed out a laugh and finally got his thumb around to the retraction button on the grapple. Just as they began to reel upward, there was a sound like a firework going off and Nightwing's arm erupted in pain, his hand – the one hanging on to Alfred – opening reflexively. Alfred slid down the embankment in an out-of-control fall while Nightwing watched in horror. Alfred missed the fire… but fell over the edge of the embankment, plummeting to the river, hands and feet still tied.

"No," Nightwing said, a simple, declarative statement that rejected what had just happened. He let go of the grappling line and dropped, kicking off the embankment to dive after Alfred. Red Hood collided with him, though, sending both of them crashing first into the embankment and then down into the sparkling flames of the wreckage on the side of the road. Sharp pain lanced up Nightwing's arm and he didn't resist as Red Hood rolled them both back into the road and out of the fire.

"Alfred—" Nightwing gasped.

"Replacement's got him," Red Hood growled. "You've been _shot_. No fifty-foot drops into rivers for you."

Nightwing shrugged him off and stumbled to the bridge, looking over the edge. He vaguely noted that Robin had dragged the kidnappers out of the flaming car and pistol-whipped them with their own guns so that they were sprawled out in the road, but he couldn't care just then.

Red Robin had plunged the glider into a hard fall. As soon as he was above where Alfred had fallen, he let the glider go and straightened his arms and legs, spearing into the water mere seconds after him. Both surfaced in moments, Red Robin treading water while holding Alfred against his chest.

Then there was a familiar whine and rush of air and the rippling silhouette of the cloaked Batplane passed overhead, dropping foamy fire retardant on the wreck (and Red Hood, Robin, and Nightwing) and stopping to hover over the river. Spoiler, at the controls, gave Nightwing a happy wave and dropped a line into the water, where Red Robin had no trouble grabbing it.

Nightwing breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the road.

Robin was standing over the kidnappers: a man and a woman, both large and muscular and starting to come to. Robin grimly unsheathed his sword. With the foam, he looked like the world's smallest, angriest snowman assassin.

"Handcuffs," Nightwing said. "Not swords." He trudged over to Red Hood, trying to ignore the way his arm throbbed with his pulse. "And maybe blindfolds since we don't need anyone wondering why half of Gotham's roster ended up on a country road in the Catskills on a Tuesday night?" he suggested quietly.

Red Hood snorted. "That sounds like a _you_ problem."

"Did you want a ride back to Gotham or not?"

"Blindfolds it is."

 

With the fire doused, Red Robin and Alfred fished out of the river, the bad guys bound and blindfolded and stowed with the wreckage of their car, and the local rangers notified anonymously, they retreated to where Red Robin had parked Batwoman's plane. Nightwing surveyed the motley crew assembled in front of him.

"Is anyone injured?"

"Oh! I know this one." Red Hood raised his hand. "You are!"

"I noticed that. Is anyone _else_ injured?" Nightwing asked, digging deep to find the last of his patience. Everyone shook their heads. "Alfred? You okay?"

"Indeed. I might inquire as to the condition of Master Bruce, however."

"Last I heard he was letting himself get kidnapped in order to foil some plot. Superman's on standby. So, probably fine," Nightwing said. "And it's a good thing he's not here." He began ticking things off on his fingers. "Lost a batglider…"

"I could probably find it," Red Robin muttered.

"…using untested equipment for the first time in the field…"

"Okay the glitter-rangs worked perfectly. …Except for the surprise flammability factor," Spoiler admitted.

"…bombs in the middle of a public road..."

Robin crossed his arms and looked generally unrepentant.

"No one died," Red Hood shrugged.

"We need to talk about your low standards for mission success parameters," Nightwing said, rubbing his forehead to try to forestall the oncoming headache. "But the important thing is, we're all fine, and we're going home. Alfred, Red Robin, and Spoiler in Batwoman's plane. Robin and Red Hood with me."

"Sweet, I get to fly the Batplane," Red Hood said.

"No," said Nightwing.

"You have a _hole in your arm_. And I'm not letting the ten-year-old fly it," Red Hood said.

"I'm perfectly capable of flying a plane," Robin argued.

"Neither of you is flying the plane!"

Alfred cleared his throat and everyone shut up. "I shall fly the Batplane, and Red Hood can go as he came, with Red Robin and Spoiler."

"Thanks, Alfred, but I want one responsible adult in each plane," Nightwing said. Red Robin and Spoiler both erupted into protests, their annoyance joining Robin's and Red Hood's.

In the end, Nightwing solved the problem by sitting down unexpectedly and swiftly, suddenly dizzy from pain and the blood still running down his arm. The next thing he knew, they were all on their way back to Gotham, though what the seating arrangements were he wasn't clear on. But he had a clean bandage from the plane's first aid kit on his arm, and familiar voices were bickering over the radio between the planes, which all seemed more-or-less right, so he let it be. After all, as long as he was with his family, what could go wrong?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I love this one. I only cut it because it really interrupted the flow of chapters 2 and 3 of Turnabout. Not gonna lie, I scrounged up those other deleted scenes just to have an excuse to post this one too.
> 
> And with that, we're finished! I hope you enjoyed this series and this peek behind the scenes. I'm taking a break for the holidays, but I expect to be back some time in 2018 with more batfam fics. Go ahead and subscribe so you don't forget about me :) You can also come find me [on tumblr](http://solomonara.tumblr.com/) \- my ask box is always open if you want to ask questions about fics or try to bait me into writing something specific (though be warned, I rarely give in to prompt-baiting :P)


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